Get Marwood & I

That could make a good episode of Storage Wars. Or Hunters. One of the storage shows. Presumable people submit and then die. You could submit at age twenty, and be dead at seventy on current TATs.

...which implies that they were stored somewhere, doesn't it, if they were printed over a period of a month in the US

Rich, lots to read when you're back - I just want to say how much I love what you're doing, and appreciate all the research and thoughts you're sharing. It takes time to do all this, and we sometimes forget the well dones. So well done mate I'm off as usual on Friday, so if you do reply later, I'll be back at the weekend.....

Although I said I wouldn't, I went to the London Fair on the 23rd last month - the first for nearly two years. Everyone I know is double vaccinated, so I thought it was about time I started living again, as I couldn't see a time when anything would be any better from a safety perspective - the virus is here to stay, so we get busy living or take the other option. I thoroughly enjoyed it as comics is my thing and comic fairs are as good as it gets for me. And the research list was enormous, having grown throughout 18 months of online only searching. It was great getting back to rifling through boxes. The organisers did reasonably well - a bit disorganised as you'd expect with a revised queuing system, held up by the need to either ping the track n trace app or fill in a details form manually. Once in side, half the usual dealers, and a one way system that was a little silly if its intention was to reduce possible transmission. That happens often I find - the introduction of an operational requirement that makes little sense, and which is neither observed or policed. Hot day, so wearing the mask was the colossal drag that wearing a mask generally is for people like me whose skin can be irritated by a gnats eyebrow. I picked up quite a lot of books in the first hour that you have to pay a fiver for (ten minutes of which was lost to the tracing scrum), then the crowds descended after that and it became almost impossible to get to any stock. I seemed to always be behind the chap who looks at every comic in the box slowly, senses it's now your turn, so he looks at them all again. You know, him. I have to say, I was looking forward more to the fry up in my usual little Italian on route, but like a great many places in London it was closed. Hopefully not for good. Like everyone else, I'll be glad when the virus has reached the point where we can all live alongside it and that it no longer places demands on what we do and how we do it. In the meantime, I'll be back at the next one in August where, hopefully, a few more dealers might show up.

A few I've posted in other threads recently - always worth a second look

Thinking that through, could that be a reason for the three month production to UK shop window? The printers printed all the January comics over a four week period, and they were all stored until the fourth week so that the UK got the whole lot in one go? Gary - back to 1973 - did all (for example) January cover dated books arrive at the same time, or was there a weekly staggered delivery? @Garystar

That's sort of my point Gary - a valid recollection, but from a later period when things may have been different. I think we can get too hung up on it, the timeframe. Comics were printed in the US throughout the month as we know, not all on the same day. So any given January cover dated comic could have been printed in the first, second, third or fourth week of the actual printing month. Some might get on boat A, some the next boat. They may be on sale in the UK at the beginning of Jan, or the end - a month apart but still the 'same month'. So it will never be exact by design. I'd like to know more about the cents stamped copies. What is your recollection, if any, of those Gary? Did you ever see them in the newsagents? If so, what was the cover date to calendar alignment? @Albert Tatlock @Mr Thorpe @Kevin.J @nmtg9 - what was your recollection on this point chaps? Probably already stated, but we're on our 88th page now so...

Hey, it's my job to talk that round here. I've been talking bollocks very successfully for nearly five years here, thank you very much That is provable, yes So basically, we don't know how long US copies were retained by US sellers - there's no proof I'm aware of - before being returned for potential onward UK distribution No proof, just recollections, unless I've missed something concrete. And for what period anyway? Always, or just a few specific years? No proof of this That doesn't make sense to me Rich? If you print a product that has to cross the ocean, you shift it quickly, don't you? Are you suggesting the contract was to have UKPVs printed, stored for a few months, then shipped to the UK? That's silly. And planes are quicker than boats - what am I missing? Do we? Even if we do, we don't know how long everything before or after it took though, do we? The salient point is the end to end timeframe from US production to UK shop appearance. Every operational step along the way is subject to debate It makes sense that they were, and they almost certainly were, but there is not one scrap of evidence to actually confirm it. No documents, no surviving stamps, no recollections from Flossie the stamper on workplace nostalgia websites. But I'm sure they were. Just stretching the 'what we can prove point' to credulity a bit. I doubt it. I can see how it would take 3 months for UKPVs to get here, but not unsold US returns - if indeed that is what they were (see Gary's point re more likely they were undistributed US overstock). And did the T&P plotting activity I did not show the stamped Marvels coming later than the DCs, and in consecutive issue batches? How is that explained, the issue bunching? This is why I'd like a summary journey chart with dates, to ensure I'm not judging an element against an observation made that relates to a different period when things may have been different. Did that make sense? I'm not good with pages of text. Give me a summary pic Rich

That's the fun part with speculation Gary - everything is possible. So little is provable though, annoyingly....

Good spot Santa

Good point That does seem more likely doesn't it. Not sure if I said at the time, if I were Marvel, and my UK friends wanted more product, I'd want them to increase the formal UKPV contract, not give them my (potentially cheaper) cast offs. Legally, if I were World, with a contract to bring UKPVs to the UK, why would I allow someone else to potentially undercut my sales by importing and distributing cents stamped copies? T&P used to proclaim themselves as the 'Sole Distributors' (they forgot Miller) in the early days - why later on would World consider a non-exclusive contract?

Rich, can you draw a picture showing the journey from beginning to end as you see it, based on these observations / what you have established so far? Showing which comics (Marvel, DC), dates etc? One column for UKPVs, one for stamped copies? I think that would really help bring all the information you have researched to life - show us a window of time that we can build further assumptions / speculation around.

Morning guys, lots to think about here. I'm going to go back to basics, focus on what the comics tell us, and try to summarise my thoughts which are currently all over the place. For Marvel, the comics tell us that there were UKPVs and T&P stamped cents copies distributed in the UK in the periods we are discussing, with some UKPV gaps. The UKPVs The UKPVs, by definition, were directly solicited and would have had volumes attached, tied up into a contract - someone in the UK, entered into a contract with someone in the US, to have them made The UKPVs were printed at the same time, and in the same place as the cents copies, approximately three months in advance of their printed cover dates (as the US arrival dates indicate) Collector recollections place them on the racks in the UK around their cover dates, indicating a three month journey from US printer to UK shop Early UKPVs had their cover dates removed I have no issue with the UKPVs taking 3 months to get to the UK myself if you think what was involved: The guts are printed en masse The UKPV covers are printed at some point in the cover run - first, last, who knows The UKPV covers would have been placed somewhere separate to the US They may have been placed on the delivery truck straight away, given the journey ahead. They may not There is a drive to the docks At the docks, do they arrive as a defined contractual shipment, or are they ballast? Presumably the former - I've never seen confirmation either way They may hang around at the docks for a while. We don't know the nature of the contract, i.e. ship immediately - the client has paid for them - or ship when they have time / space / weight constrictions etc The boat then travels - we don't know the speed. Or the route. Stop off in Europe first? How did the Charltons covered in Italian shipping stamps get there? Same boat? The boat arrives in the UK Are they first or last off the boat? The comics come off. Does the client come and collect / arrange to have them collected immediately? Or to a frequency? Do they sit in a warehouse for a while? Are they held up in customs? The comics are collected and taken to a UK distribution warehouse They are processed for distribution around the UK - how long does that take? They are loaded up and driven to their respective destinations - hubs or direct? They are delivered to the shops I could see all that taking 3 months. So many unknowns, so many opportunities for delay. And the chances are, a wide variation in timings as the years progress / operation is refined. And all based on a "the comics were in the shops at the same time as their cover dates" 60 year old recollection. There is no documentary evidence that I am aware that they were. And a January cover dated book that is in a UK shop on the first of January is available on its cover month. So is one that was put out on the 30th of January. The T&P Stamped Copies The UKPVs were contractual, made to UK order. The (to be) stamped cents copies weren't made to UK order. My understanding, is that the printers overprinted by a huge margin. The 'statements of ownership' tell us that. I still do not have a satisfactory answer to the question "why would a printer routinely print hundreds of thousands of comics every month when sales figures consistently indicated that only half of them would sell"? https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/482435-charlton-print-run-vs-sales-numbers/#comments Some say it was as cheap to print 200k copies as 100k copies. So what? If the printers had to deal with and pulp the returns, why did they keep placing that burden upon themselves? There must have been some industry / contractual obligation to do that. So, back to our stamped copies. Rich - you said: "Imagine the pile of PV’s, way head of their cover date, waiting to be sent to the UK, when the trucks full of returns from newsstands OF EXACTLY THE SAME COMICS came back to be pulped. How long would it take you to put 2 and 2 together?" I don't think the UKPVs were waiting at all. They were printed and sent on their way and it took 3 months for them to be in the UK on sale. But I do think that the returns from the US would have had their covers removed - there is evidence that that is the way the sellers got their money back. So those defaced books couldn't be used for the UK market. Much more likely is the possibility that the overprinted cents stock was used. Think about it: Printer prints 600k copies of Amazing Spider-Man every month, even though only 300k sell every month All 600k are shipped out and distributed in the US Half come back (defaced?) Printer has to process / pulp 300k comics Why would any company create such a gigantically inefficient model and burden itself with the unnecessary operational and logistical problems of printing, transporting, processing and destroying things they knew would never sell? Think of the potential operational savings on offer there. I think the UK distributed copies were 5p because they were not contractually requested as the 6p printed versions were. One or more distributors agreed to pay a set price for a set amount of printed UKPVs, and a (possibly) lower price for product that may or may not have done the rounds in the US - either way, with a whiff of 'second hand' about them. "Oh, your books didn't sell? We'll take em for a dime - save you pulping them." Pass on the saving to the UK market (and they're a few months out of date too, when they get here) If the stamped cents copies were actual US shop returns then it would have taken ages for them to get to the UK shops. My exercise about the DC comics on sale in the UK 'Operation Third Form' kids film showed they were way behind cover date. Which makes sense. I wonder whether when we say that the UK distributed cents copies were 'unsold US returns' we should be saying 'undistributed US overstock' instead (as Gary is suggesting). Do we have enough evidence either way? And my last thought - I think the distribution procedures for DC, Marvel, Charlton etc were different. Charlton, with their inhouse cereal box printing press operation, seemed to manage a seamless distribution of comics into the UK from 1959 to 1964 with sequential issues being stamped, then UKPV'd then stamped again with no gaps at all. Marvel looks all over the place by comparison. We need a summary chart for all this - we need to lock down the dates when we see or think things are happening. Those who can recall an event (e.g. UKPVs were cover dated in line with the calendar) - when specifically, for which publishers and for how long? They might have been for a while, but not in other years. We have made scores of salient observations and assessments in this thread, but I'm losing track of where they all fit on a timeline. All good fun.

Keep digging Reggie We were discussing how few pictures of Ross exist, and how different he looks in each - one giveaway - checked shirts Is that the same bloke!?

The listing text says it was signed "February 9, 1992 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City at a Comic Book Convention" I can't find any mention of that on Google. I did find this: ...on here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Eastern_Conventions Maybe they got the date wrong, but you'd think there would be one photo on Google somewhere of an appearance of Andru & Esposito at a comic con from 1992, wouldn't you? They did have cameras back then.

This is only the second example I've seen of the AUS sticker corrected Wolverine #57 - a better image too than the previous one in the files: The barcode has the US issue number '08' - it would've been an '11' if it were a proper printed APV. It's nice to think that someone in production cared enough to make the stickers to ensure the Australian readers got their copy. Or maybe they had to, to fulfill the (allegedly under the radar) contract. Who knows....

Not sure if this is legit, but you'd expect a photo or two to exist of the event, wouldn't you and I can't find any after a quick search. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/amazing-spider-man-158-1976-fn-fn-542881290

Chapter 1: Turning it off and on again I've mentioned in other threads that CGC staff are hugely reliant on the software provider, Invision, and many of the technical and access problems are out of their control. My issue is the lack of direct communication about it. A bit more would help I think. I made that point again, yesterday behind the scenes, and I'm going to try very very hard now to leave it at that.

And you just can't hide it? I've had email discussions with a few of the CGC team down the years and it is my belief that they are good people who do care about this forum and the members. I just wish they would do more to let us know it.

Do you know hat year the photo was taken? The art looks like character studies for cartoon animals. Fox and Crow or something like that. The bottom right character looks like a dog - the one above a crow or bird or some sort: If we knew the date, and the work was published, we might be able to find something. This from Wikipandru: "In 1946, Andru worked for an animation studio in Manhattan drawing artwork for Chiclets chewing gum commercials." Could be something like that.